Sources within Hutcheson tell LU the hospital laid off at least 20 employees Thursday, mostly from support and mid-management positions.

Hardest hit departments were radiology and ICU. Parkside Nursing Home lost its nutrition and housekeeping supervisors. HMC’s supervisor of engineering was cut loose. The entire outpatient nursing department was shuttered, and another source says the hospital will no longer run an operating room at night for emergency room patients.

A lot of managers who DIDN’T get laid off are going to be covering jobs for those who were.

Also rumored to have been cut: Tammy Cole, director of the Hutcheson Foundation and the hospital’s recent PR contact. She’s the one who’s been sending e-mails for the CEO and press releases to the media.

But still no buyer for the hospital.

More layoffs are expected before October 1 when Hutcheson’s new financial year begins

The bus was in the Chickamauga area carrying students from Ridgeland, Chattanooga Valley Middle, and a few elementary kids – all arrived at their respective schools a little late due to the disturbance.

Preventing crime, or abusing the mentally ill?

WQCH Radio, 09/25/15:“A LOCAL HOMELESS MAN WAS CHARGED WITH LOITERING, AFTER POLICE GOT SEVERAL CONCERNED CALLS THAT HE WAS ‘LOOKING INTO PARKED CARS’ AT THE SONIC AND BI-LO PARKING LOTS IN LAFAYETTE.

“20 YEAR OLD STEVEN AUSTIN HULSEY WAS ‘COVERED IN BLOOD’ WHEN POLICE STOPPED HIM. HE SAID HE HAD BEEN BEATEN BY A COUPLE OF PEOPLE WHERE HE’D BEEN STAYING ON GLENN STREET.

“HE WAS CHARGED WITH LOITERING FOR ‘ACTING IN A MANNER NOT USUAL FOR LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS’. HE TOLD POLICE HE HAD RECENTLY MOVED TO LAFAYETTE FROM KENNESAW, AND HAS NO MONEY UNTIL HIS NEXT DISABILITY CHECK COMES IN.”

The mugshot is from Hulsey’s April 2013 arrest down in Marietta. He was charged with battery there. (Kennesaw and Marietta probably don’t want him back.)

Some argue that Mr. Hulsey is a mentally disabled man who needs care, not jail. But if LPD did nothing while he wandered around looking inside cars, people would be asking why they didn’t do anything to prevent yet another vehicle break-in.

Unfortunately, in Georgia, this IS how we care for mentally disabled or disturbed people now. The state closed most of its mental hospitals and replaced them with “community care” several years ago due to an order from the federal government.

“Community care” means we let troubled people wander around until they break a law and then they get to sleep in a cell for a night or two. Hulsey is already back out and will likely be doing the same thing again soon.

During the September council meeting, LaFayette’s elected leaders decided to hold city property taxes steady. They didn’t approve a final city budget for 2016 but will meet again before October 1 to finish one.

They also voted to purchase two new patrol cars for LPD.

Valerie Kaye Howell went to jail last Wednesday for allegedly switching price tags on items at Walmart. She paid for the mispriced items but didn’t get to keep them, plus went to jail for about $200 of junk.

Howell was arrested again, a day later, charged with more theft after allegedly stealing money, cards, and medication from her (now ex?) coworkers at Five Star Food.

“This massive debt obviously places the burden of repaying it on the future generation. It is an old trick that some politicians will resort to by borrowing excessive money while they are in office, which might tend to make them temporarily look good. And then the debt problems are shifted to the descendants for them to deal with.”

This is the first letter like this in a LONG time we’ve seen published in the Messenger, and it’s not because people haven’t been writing them.

Federal rules still prohibits the state from installing phone blockers in prisons, which would be the quickest way to end all this. (The second quickest way would be paying corrections officers enough that they don’t get tempted to smuggle in contraband.)

The race will again have a Walker County bicycle portion, but it won’t be on Lookout Mountain. Participants on Sunday will go along 193 from Tennessee, down Cove Rd, then back up Hog Jowl twice – stopping short (and bypassing) Mountain Cove Farms.

The city of Calhoun has been pulled into a lawsuit over its practice of INDEFINITELY jailing people who can’t pay steep bonds for minor crimes like jaywalking or public intoxication, in advance of their court dates. Essentially, jailing the poor.

A few months back Georgia’s Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate with a Rebel Flag image on it was pulled from tag offices around the state for a “redesign.”

Now the plate is coming back, possibly next week. So far there’s no leak of what the new politically corrected design will look like, but you can bet it doesn’t feature the flag nearly as prominently. The article says the background image of the flag is gone and the organization’s logo has been modified.

(State law requires a SOCV plate be sold, but doesn’t specify what can or cannot be on it.)

Did you get a vacation this year? If so, did you pay for it?

Many Georgia legislators got more than one, often for free. Some paid for trips and got meals or perks free while there.

Regardless of what the public thinks about “transgender” people, Georgia has to set consistent rules in place to address them and their needs, or at least figure out how their complaints and concerns will be considered.

Public restrooms, schools, prisons, and everywhere else in society – transgender citizens aren’t going away, and the state has to decide what policies it will apply to them.

Georgia recently sued a California non-profit for putting the state’s code of laws and compiled court decisions online, for free. The state says that tax-funded material should only be available for $378, and accused the charity of “terrorism” for putting the documents online.

About 200 people have signed up for the state’s Cannabis Oil license program since it began in July, which means they can avoid being charged under state law if found with the low-potency oil, but state and federal rules still don’t allow them to actually make, or bring in, marijuana related products in Georgia.

2 comments so far

I may not always agree with some of your comments but I am grateful to you for compiling the news for us. Now I will go click an ad…

Bobby Hamilton said: 2015.09.26 21:56

I have emailed the news to help out walker county and have heard nothing. Everybody needs to blow news 3 ,9 and 12 phone up to help run an investigation on the commissioner to see that she is bankrupt the county and making it so we can’t afford to live here.